It’s Greg Craig’s Fault that Dawn Johnsen Hasn’t Been Confirmed

Marc Ambinder has one of the most thorough discussions of Greg Craig’s ouster I’ve seen so far. It claims (Eric Holder’s public statements notwithstanding) that Craig wasn’t ousted for his “idealism” on national security…

The notion that the President was dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of the Guantanamo Bay closure has reached the level of an accepted urban myth, even though it is not true.  This may be Craig’s legacy — and it may serve him well with his allies on the ideological left who are eager to portray his departure as evidence that Obama rejects a new national security paradigm.

Rather, he was ousted because his focus on such issues distracted him from things like Senate confirmations.

The White House was also dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of political appointments, believing that Craig should have spent more time working with the Justice Department and with Congress to force through some of the President’s most eagerly-awaited principals, like Dawn Johnsen, whose nomination to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel still languishes. The issue of nominations is especially sensitive for the president, a constitutional law lecturer in his former life. [my emphasis]

As a threshold matter, let me agree that Bob Bauer will be much more successful at ramming through nominations, which if we’re going to reclaim the judicial system from the mess that the Federalist Society and Alberto Gonzales’ DOJ made of it, is critically important. Bauer’s a fierce partisan unafraid to call out Republicans on their partisan grand-standing. I look forward to his role in nominations.

That said, Ambinder does give evidence of such a split.

It is true that Mr. Craig and Mr. Emanuel did not always see eye to eye.  It was Craig’s importuning that may have convinced the president to release Bush-era Justice Department memorandum that sanctioned torture.

“This is what you were elected to do,” Craig told the president in one Oval Office meeting.

Emanuel worried about the political repercussions of a first-term young Democratic president who would appear to be thumbing the eyes of the national security establishment.  Craig won the round.

Which, at the very least, ought to make you ask: even accepting the premise that this was all about Craig’s management problems, why was it handled in this way? Why was it clear to everyone outside the White House–at the time when, Ambinder claims, “the president’s staff appeared to be ready to give Craig a second chance”–that there was this animosity between Rahm and Craig? Why was that animosity always framed in terms of Gitmo and torture? If “the president’s staff appeared ready to give Craig a second chance,” why did leaks that looked remarkably like leaks from the President’s Chief of Staff continue unabated? Why did that leaker turn this into a public issue, rather than just handling it quietly?

If the White House is ousting people for bad management, and the Chief of Staff spent the last three or four months leaking about Craig’s imminent departure rather than implementing that imminent departure, then why isn’t Obama also ousting the Chief of Staff, who turned the White House into a petty sniping war instead of managing it like an adult?

Rahm may want to blame Greg Craig that Dawn Johnsen hasn’t been confirmed (a nice sop to the liberals suspicious that Craig’s ouster was over torture). But in doing so, he is making it clear he’s to blame for turning the Craig ouster into a fiasco.

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51 replies
  1. mbair says:

    President Obama has spent the last 10 months doing everything he could to be non-confrontational. He has refused to push back on any issue he campaigned for but instead he has backed down on virtually every single issue when pressured by conservatives. From states secrets to climate change to health care reform to the judicial branch to the economy he has caved every time, and now we are supposed to believe that he allowed Craig to be ousted for not being aggressive enough or focused on the agenda. Nonsense!

    • georgewalton says:

      He has refused to push back on any issue he campaigned for but instead he has backed down on virtually every single issue when pressured by conservatives.

      I do not believe Obama has backed down when confronted by conservatives. I do not believe that, with respect to Wall Street, the healthcare industry or the military industrial complex perspective on foreign policy, he was ever a liberal to begin with.

      How else to explain Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers?

      Try this:

      1] google Bilderberg Group and educate yourself about its agenda.

      2] note that the following Obama administration members/advisers are, in turn, members of Bilderberg:

      * Hillary Clinton
      * Tom Daschle
      * Robert Gates
      * Tim Geithner
      * Jim Jones
      * Susan Rice
      * Larry Summers
      * Paul Volker

      3] Connect the dots.

  2. bmaz says:

    The White House was also dissatisfied with Craig’s handling of political appointments, believing that Craig should have spent more time working with the Justice Department and with Congress to force through some of the President’s most eagerly-awaited principals, like Dawn Johnsen, whose nomination to be head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel still languishes. The issue of nominations is especially sensitive for the president, a constitutional law lecturer in his former life. [my emphasis]

    Uh huh. Sure. That’s the ticket. Just how gullible is Ambinder?

  3. Peterr says:

    From that second blockquote:

    The issue of nominations is especially sensitive for the president, a constitutional law lecturer in his former life.

    If so, he hides it well.

    Of course, if this is Rahm trying to pass the buck for his own failure to get Dawn confirmed, he’s going to either have to actually get Dawn into place or come up with another scapegoat pretty soon.

    But the paragraph in Ambinder’s piece that precedes the one you quoted is quite interesting as well:

    They were surprised when Eric Holder, the attorney general, decided to appoint a prosecutor to review interrogation files. It wasn’t so much that they disagreed with the decision — Holder’s independence is something that the White House grudgingly accepts as necessary and proper — it was that Craig wasn’t in the loop. He had not taken the time to build himself up as an institutional figure who the attorney general wouldn’t dare avoid briefing before acting.

    IOW, someone in the WH believes that the DOJ can’t act without the WHCO knowing about it.

    Didn’t we just go through 8 years of that? Either the DOJ can make their own decisions or they can’t. Whining about not getting a heads up is just that, Rahm: whining.

      • mamazboy says:

        How Rahm has gotten the reputation for being “brilliant” and “savvy” and “able to get things done” is beyond me. Every story I hear about him makes him seem barely competent. Increasingly, I’m afraid Obama is coming off that way too. I don’t buy any of this Ambinder story. The WH doesn’t push back on anything with the slightest whiff of controversy. Dawn Johansen should have been approved months ago. If they can’t get it done, it’s probably because they don’t care enough (or are too afraid of making waves) to get it done.

    • emptywheel says:

      Of course, if this is Rahm trying to pass the buck for his own failure to get Dawn confirmed, he’s going to either have to actually get Dawn into place or come up with another scapegoat pretty soon.

      Yes indeedy.

      And as to the WH/DOJ comment, Ambinder just tweeted a much stronger interpretation than he put in his post:

      White House worried that Craig wasn’t strong enough to counter independent Justice Dept.

      Given that Ambinder is clearly relying on Rahm for this article, given that the big “independent” move DOJ took was in reviewing the torture non-prosecutions, I think we’re getting some place as to the underlying tensions here.

      • Peterr says:

        I don’t suppose Ambinder will give up the euphemism “The White House says . . .” and put some names and faces to the content he pushes.

          • Peterr says:

            I have these memories of a Doonesbury from back in the 70s, where the actual building of the White House complains that it is being forced to take the blame for the energy crisis, inflation, or whatever the problem du jour was. “Every day, it’s ‘the WH says this’ and ‘the WH says that’. Why do they blame it on me?”

      • bmaz says:

        Oh we are getting somewhere as to the real tensions here; just likely not as to the real reason Craig was canned (which is how Marc is trying to pitch it).

      • Peterr says:

        That tweet is a lot stronger than saying “the DOJ didn’t tell us this was coming.”

        This is not about protocol, but about control, which leads me to think that the comments about Dawn are kabuki. If “the White House” (aka Rahm) is worried about controlling an independent DOJ, I don’t think getting Dawn confirmed is high on their list of priorities. By all accounts, she’s got a pretty independent mind and is willing to speak it — and putting her in as head of OLC where she can (in theory) tell the WH to stand down on something will not help Rahm sleep easier at night.

    • Cynthia Kouril says:

      There is ad ifference between DOJ having the independance to make their own decisions and DOJ leaving WH out of the loop.

      It is unusual for DOJ to blindside WH unless there is reason (like you investigating someone in the WH)

      A decision like the one to review the torture memos is one that you would actually expect DOJ to solicit the opinion of the WH. The ultimate DOj decision might reject the WH preference, but I would have expected DOJ to be intersted in hearing what that perspective is.

      • bmaz says:

        Oh come on, the WH was not freaking blindsided by the decision; they are just having second thoughts because the wonderful aura of Obama did not turn out to be strong enough to deflect the blowback. This “blindsided” bit is pure bullshit.

        • Cynthia Kouril says:

          Maybe blindsided is not the word I want, but Holder seemed to go out of his way with respect to the decision to try KSM in NYC, that he called up thw WH very shortly before the announcement to inform them of the decision.

          Which is fine, assuming he had solicted their input before reaching his own decision. I’m wondering if Craig was not doing the liason portion of his job very well?

          Just speculating, I have no data. As you know, I never bought the Craig got canned to punish him for his views on Gitmo theory. There are too many people in the Admon that share the “GITMO shoud be closed” belief and have not been afraid of who knows that.

          So, if harboring that belief and trying to act on it were a bad thing, I think others would be quieter about it.

      • Peterr says:

        I’m 100% certain that the DOJ solicited WH opinion on this.

        Someone at the WH is pissed that, having made a decision, the DOJ didn’t go back to the WH and give them a yet another chance to change the DOJ’s mind.

        All the while proclaiming that the ultimate decision is the DOJ’s, of course.

        • Cynthia Kouril says:

          Peterr,

          THAT is a theory I might adopt for my own.

          Which supports the “Craig didn’t do a good enough job of staying in the loop” meme.

      • emptywheel says:

        To clarify, Obama and the White House and Rahm WERE in the loop on teh torture memos. Both sides argued their case and Obama decided to take Holder/Craig’s suggestion.

        What this source (probably Rahm) alleges is taht Craig wasn’t in the loop on a review of the torture non-prosecutions.

        That came, of course, after Rahm had publicly said their would be no investigation, and after a number of people at DOJ got very angry that the political side of the WH was making such statements.

        Now, we’ve only got on side of the debate here–but I’d suggest on this matter, there was already teh sense from DOJ that some in the WH (notably, Rahm) were improperly trying to intervene in the decision.

        • bmaz says:

          Right, and given how weak Holder’s decision to “review” really is, this whole bit just reeks of Rahmbo type petulance a heck of a lot more than Craig incompetence.

      • Mary says:

        My understanding is that they did consult on the torture opinons and that was not a surprise, rather that the surprise was the decision to appoint an investigator. Given the extent of White House involvement (even a White House under a different President) in the actual acts of torture and the WH control over evidentiary mechanisms, I think the extent of briefing of the WH on the decision to investigate – the WH – has to have been a little touchy.

        I also don’t buy that he was completely out of the loop – more that he didn’t obstruct the decision. jmo

    • Mary says:

      Doesn’t he (hide it well).

      I’d like someone to point out the influential law review articles or con law cases Obama worked on. It’s like saying that Sara Palin was a lecturer on Russian containment policies in her former life.

      & – yeah – nice to know that they feel they can install someone as WHC who will make Holder shake in his shoes. That’s what DOJ needs to regain credibility.

  4. klynn says:

    Very OT.

    I read this not too long ago and a paragraph jumped out at me. Thought it might make an interesting read for others.

    That piece that jumped out at me just seems to nag at me like Rahm’s leaks.

    • Hugh says:

      Fielder first learned of the Israeli fighting style, Krav Maga, while he was deployed in Afghanistan.

      “I learned about Krav Maga when I was stationed with the Israelis, while on a Chinook, they said I was in pretty good shape and asked if I did any fighting. I told them I wrestled and they offered to teach me Krav Maga, in return, if I taught them to wrestle,” said Fielder.

      Is it this that caught your eye, as in what are Israelis doing in Afghanistan with US forces?

  5. scribe says:

    More to the point, if Craig was so ineffectual in pushing Obama’s nominees, particular Dawn Johnsen (whose nomnation, FWIW, I identified as probably a sop to the left back when it was made), why not just hire Bauer The Aggressive Partisan and give him that part – nominations – of Craig’s portfolio, and keep Craig in his job on those parts where he was getting stuff done?

    Unless, of course, you don’t want the stuff Craig was getting done, to get done.

  6. robgard says:

    The “independent” Obama Justice Department is just as dedicated to the primary objectives of the remainder of the Rahmbama Administration, to wit: PROTECT THE FORMER BUSH ADMINISTRATION FROM LEGAL LIABILITY AND EMBARASSMENT AND CONTINUE ITS POLICIES AT ALL COSTS!!!, and Craig just wouldn’t get with the program. The current administration has just signalled that they are fine with the political prosecutions of the former administration:
    http://rawstory.com/2009/11/obama-lawyers-democrat-alleging-political-prosecution-jail/

    • WarOnWarOff says:

      Just amazing that Karl Rove will never see the inside of a prison cell, while Don Siegelman gets thrown under the 18-wheeler of “Change.”

  7. NorskeFlamethrower says:

    AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

    Citizen emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

    The question for me is: “when is Obama gunna realize that Tiny Dancer Rahm is setting up another 1994 in 2010 so that there will be enough Repiblican fascists in the Congress to force Obama to triangulate with the corporatists?”

    And when are the progressives in BOTH houses of congress gunna realize that they hafta confront Obama about Rahm or they will be left to fight for the party without the White House (as it appears they have been doin’ for a year now)? Rahm Emmanuel represents the epitome of Clintonian politics and his history is that of epic failure in everything he has done to the benefit of the corporate oligarchy.

    Thank you for another VERY informative post Sister Marcy, you keep makin’ me proud I once helped to pay for your work!

    KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THE STRUGGLE GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

  8. bobroberts says:

    It’s November 17, 2009 and George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith, Wolfowitz, Tenent, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell all still walk around free people.

    All of them are guilty of either gross imcompetence or criminal negligence.

    That’s not change I can believe in and it pisses me off a little more every single day.

  9. demi says:

    My first embarrassing question of the day. I should know this, so…isn’t Dawn Johnson already doing that job, just not “officially confirmed”?
    Thank you in advance.

  10. bmaz says:

    There you go. In fact, if you are looking for a reason Craig got dumped, one of them might be that he agreed with Holder’s decision, was not willing to prostitute himself to follow the ObamaRahma line that they were shocked, SHOCKED! to find out of Holder’s action and they didn’t like that.

    And all this over the weakest ass non-decision to “investigate” er “review” torture in the first place. This is all just silly.

  11. TomWells says:

    Rahm’s style. But Obama brought him in so Obama owns all of Rahm’s acts, including the leaks and pushing out Dean.

  12. bobschacht says:

    Thanks for this, EW.
    It is good to see the issue of Dawn Johnsen’s (delayed) confirmation coming up. Whether it was Craig’s lack of skill/aggressiveness or Rahm’s, hopefully the net effect will be to get some movement on this and other DOJ nominations.

    I’m wondering if Holder’s praise of Craig was a kind of standard “so long, it’s been good to know you (good riddance)” benediction to a relationship that was not working. It seems like maybe it was working until after the release of the OLC memos(?), but not so much since then?

    Bob in AZ

  13. JoeBuck says:

    Let’s get real. Pres. Obama doesn’t care that much about whether Dawn Johnsen is confirmed (at least, it’s way down on his list compared to any number of other issues), and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rahm Emanuel is actively against it. She would be a voice against the coverup and the continuation of the Bush imperial presidency. That would be inconvenient.

  14. Leen says:

    You have to wonder what role Rahm Emmanuel had on Charles Freeman being targeted. sure have not heard much from Freeman after he was shit on by the I lobby

    “I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.”

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672847973688515.html

  15. Hugh says:

    Re Craig, this is all hoohaw. First, Rahm gets rid of him. And then he tarnishes his image. Ineffective, didn’t push the Johnsen nomination, etc. Well if Craig was so ineffective how is it that he supposedly wrote the Executive Orders banning torture and winning Obama’s backing to close Guantanamo within one year? What it looks like is that Craig was effective early on and this resulted in a lot of pushback from Obama’s neocons led by Rahm and his eventual ouster.

    Ambinder is just providing the standared DC press role of shill to power.

  16. Mary says:

    In my personal opinion, the claim that Obama wanted Johnsen in faster is bull. There’s no way he’d have been able to pull off, so painlessly, so many of his personal policy decisions to attack the constitution and the rule of law to cover for Bush if she had been installed. Now that they have made all the filings in torture secrets cases – now that they have passed the buck on torture pictures to Congress and and Gates – now that they have the MCA and are close to done on Patriot Act – now that they have received a Circuit Ct decision that they can defy a dist ct judge’s ruling to release in habeas cases – now that they have completed machinations on lies to the courts in multiple settings from fibs to Walker through “losing” documents in front of Hellerstein – now that they have threatened the national security of Britain and opted in for disregarding any duty to Americans in Britain in order to cover up the Binyam Mohammed torture –

    NOW Obama wants to pretend that he really wanted Johnsen in place way back when and it’s Craig’s fault. That’s bull. She’s married to Lee Hamilton’s nephew – Lugar and bluedogBayh both were supporting her. If Obama had really wanted her, he’d have had her. For that matter, she would have been a great ally for Craig, much more so than an ally for Rahm. So I have a very hard time believing that it was some mere incompetence on Craig’s part that is why she lagged.

    And of course Republicans made the announcements early on that Justice was going to be their main battleground on appointments, as healthcare would be on legislation. What resources did Obama allocate to Craig for that battle?

    BTW -here’s a nifty interactive graphic from WaPo on the status in general fo Obama’s nominations
    http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2009/federal-appointments/

    It’s worth noting how stalled MANY of them are and how many haven’t even been announced, nearly a fourth of the way through his term.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Ah, there’s the rub. Nominations tell a hopeful public exactly what Obama’s priorities are and who he will charge with making them happen. Disconnects are obvious and on the public record, owing to the Senate confirmation process. If the disconnects between the real and the electoral Obama are sharp enough, it would alienate his base far more than his opponents. The odd Dawn Johnsen can shield a lot of ConservaDem and former lobbyist nominations, especially when the latter get through and the former twist in the wind.

      Nominations throw a harsh light on more than Obama’s priorities and management skills. It puts into the unforgiving glare how fractious, selfish and narcissistic Senate Dems are, and how little ability Harry Reid has shown in managing them. That, too, may be cover to hide the conservative sheep in Obama’s clothing. “Ineffectual, but we tried” is a better slogan to run on than, “screw you, I like banksters and insuresters.” Middle Americans? Not so much.

  17. Mary says:

    @3 cont – I’m not that worried that they can get Johnsen confirmed anytime they want, and so “prove” that Craig was incompetent. They’ve done what they wanted to do without having to deal with her and she’s been pretty pliant with allowing her appointment to be used as a bright shiney while they were out there contravening everything that she supposedly would have resisted in advance of installing her.

  18. Mary says:

    Oops – cross posted with EW.

    In the end, the question remains what it has always been – what kind of leader is Obama. It’s not like he has ever set any clear path – he equivocates like a pro and then can duck and blame whoever, whenever, as the political winds shift.

    “Close GITMO” isn’t a leadership position. Close GITMO BECAUSE my policy decisions are X,Y,Z – that’s a leadership position. But if you go there, lead, then you own the problems. If you own that you only want to close GITMO bc of Sup Ct rulings that you think you can escape by moving detainees to Bagram – that your policy decision is that you want to keep innocent men held without recourse bc it is politically inconvenient to give them recourse – the own it and lead there (the Republicans and Blue Dogs will lap it up). If you want to close it bc it is a testimony to the Executive attempting to actively destroy the rule of law and abuse the military and power as CIC and bc it opened the door to the innocent being commingled with the guilty – then own it and lead there.

    But don’t throw out an ambiguous talking point and equally ambiguous action point, try to milk it all ways for all people, then blame some guy for not being able to push you non-existent “policy” platforms to fruition.

    Obama’s not just an empty suit, he’s an empty suit who doesn’t mind burying the dagger deep in someone’s back.

  19. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Rahm’s imitation of Cheney-the-master-bureaucrat, who could kill a career with only a sneer, is pale and limpid. But it makes his boss look weak, incompetent, indecisive and back-stabbing. Those are precisely the characteristics the GOP will attack Obama as having in 2010 and 2012.

    Never mind the hypocrisy or their role in causing the problems they will attack Obama for having caused. Republicans will accuse Obama of such behavior, whether the issue is pulling back from their failed wars, kowtowing to banksters and insuresters, or failing adequately to boost the economy to deal with 49 million hungry, 47 million medically uninsured, and 35-60 million un- and under-employed Americans.

    If Obama wanted Craig out, if Rahm wanted Craig out, they should have asked for his resignation, appointed a replacement, and put out a blurb for the WaPoop to blather about. If the issue were about Craig’s poor management, that would have brought better management onboard promptly. It would have reassured the troops and kept them moving forward, taking new ground. It would have avoided what Obama claims is the most evil sin in the world – distraction from his political agenda.

    Did they do that? No. They fired Craig the way a fictional, inebriated, too-often celibate Maureen Dowd-like pundit would have written about a still luscious and sought after French actress half as old again as she is.

    As EW says, the problem isn’t Craig’s lack of management skills. It’s Obama and Rahm’s lack of management skills. Neither has, it seems, the intelligence to know what they themselves lack or the courage to put strong players on their team who have what they lack. That’s an expression of the Peter Principle.

    Obama can still fix this; he can show that he has not been promoted beyond his skill level. He is indispensable, Rahm is not. He can fire Rahm and persuade some hotel management or food service company in Chicago to hire another overpaid vice president. Obama could run his administration as if he believed half of the claims he made while when he ran for office.

    If he wants more appointments rammed through the Senate, he could dismiss Joe Lieberman as an empty suit and tell Harry Reid either to use those often-touted boxing skills or immediately relinquish his post to someone who still has them. He could harass Senate Dems half as much as he berates House progressives, tell them to get going, because the albatross is around their necks just as much as it is his.

    • bobschacht says:

      As EW says, the problem isn’t Craig’s lack of management skills. It’s Obama and Rahm’s lack of management skills.

      I was speculating about this yesterday. Obama has little executive experience, and his VEEP and SoS were senators with little or no executive experience. Neither does Rahm. Some Cabinet members, such as Napolitano and Sebelius, had executive experience as Governors, and Napolitano has been touted for her executive experience. Perhaps Obama needs an executive council of people with significant executive experience to coach him a bit on how to manage these things more effectively?

      Bob in AZ

  20. Kassandra says:

    It really seems to me that Obama is acting like a place holder for the next admin. He hasn’t yet filled one half of his posts and his admin is riddled with Bush moles.

    It’s almost as if he was put in there expressly to show how Democrats can’t get things done for the people anymore.
    So, Americans, so fearful of this climate of corporate/ecumenical fascism/influence, we have with someone who promised US the moon, are expected to run back into the nuclear arms of the Republican party. Back and forth between two wolves like a flock of sheep.

    And Americans may well do it. That’s if our votes count for anything at all anymore. Of course, they have to maintain the illusion that they’re scared of what the “voters” think.

    Obama’s mission seems to be to distribute our money at as rapid a clip as he can possibly do it. Then, get out of the way

    • bobschacht says:

      Kassandra,
      You’re getting cynical too young! You’re supposed to give us the Audacity of Hope!

      But seriously, too much cynicism is unhealthy. Even for me. At one stage of my life I was a seriously cynical person– I got to be right a lot, but it didn’t make me happy. Look for opportunities to turn things around, and do what you can.

      There’s a latin proverb that supposedly goes, “Illegitimus non carborundum.” It means “Don’t let the bastards wear you down.”

      We need for you to be in good shape for that Presidential campaign you’re planning, right?

      Cheers,
      Bob in AZ

    • marxmarv says:

      Oh, our votes do matter. No one’s willing to cast a vote that does matter because the only votes that matter have been loudly and tenaciously labeled by Teh Establishment as “wasted votes”. Only as far as Teh Establishment is concerned are they “wasted”.

      There IS enough to go around. Vote Free Earth 2010.

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